A Reappraisal of Death Penalty in Nigeria

It is true that the law is an instrument of social control. The discourse on the use of the death penalty as a penal sanction for offences is often clouded with contention. Over the years, the issue surrounding the death penalty has been the subject of intense debate among scholars, jurists, lawyers, criminologists, and sociologists. The death penalty is the ultimate punishment meted out to an adjudged felon by a court of competent jurisdiction. In the last four decades, in the realm of criminal justice and human rights across the globe, the tide of international criminal law has been moving against the use of the death penalty. While the abolition of the death penalty has become the order of the day in many developed and developing countries around the world, the legal and judicial framework for the administration of criminal justice in Nigeria still recognises and accords legality to the death penalty. The underlying principle of retributive punishment remains commonplace in Nigeria's criminal justice administration. Despite this, arguments about the abolition and retention of capital punishment are endless. This paper's thrust is to provide a new evaluation of the legal propriety or otherwise of the death penalty within the Nigerian criminal justice system. More importantly, this paper proposes a pragmatic way forward in light of the contemporary debate on the abolition or retention of the death penalty in Nigeria.